On 12 October, 900 people met in the Los Llanos ejido, San Cristóbal de Las Casas (SCLC) municipality, to celebrate the “522 years of indigenous resistance before the European invasion,” and to express their rejection of the planned SCLC-Palenque highway that would pass through their lands. Following the invitation that was carried out by ejidatarios from Los Llanos on 21 September, those present affirmed that the highway “does not bring development for us indigenous peoples, but only death, depression, and division. The money goes to the rich transnational [corporations].”

Collectives and civil organizations attended the event, in addition to the brigade of solidarity with Bachajón from the Network against Repression and for Solidarity. The Otomí people from San Francisco Xochicuautla, Mexico State, who similarly oppose the Toluca-Naucalpan highway, sent a letter in solidarity.

Ricardo Lagunes, the lawyer who accompanies the legal process of the Los Llanos ejido, denounced that there was no free, prior, and informed consent in the case, as is demanded by the international treaties that Mexico has signed, in order to avoid the situation wherein indigenous peoples are affected by projects in their territories over which they have no say. He recalled that the announcement of the construction of the highway was made in November 2013, such that the community requested a legal motion at the beginning of 2014. The official response was to deny that the highway would damage the lands of Los Llanos, thus allowing judges to bury the motion and leave the communities vulnerable.

Lastly, the Council for Vigilance from La Candelaria has organized a pilgrimage for 25 November in San Cristóbal de Las Casas to mark International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.

In a press-conference held on 11 September in the offices of the Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas Center for Human Rights, ejidiatari@s from Candelaria, San Cristóbal de Las Casas municipality, made public their opposition to the planned construction of the highway between San Cristóbal de Las Casas and Palenque, with this being a decision agreed to in their communal assembly.

The ejidatarios denounced acts of pressure, harassment, and death-threats on the part of governmental authorities to make the assembly accept the passage of the highway through its lands. On 23 June, governmental representative Javier López Ramírez came to announce that “the highway would pass” through the other communities that had already signed the accord, but the ejidatarios investigated this claim to find out that it was false. They affirmed that “the comrades from Chilon told [us] that the government used the same strategy with them and that it was not true.”

The ejidatarios expressed that “elders, women, men, children, communities, and organizations will join together to see what can be done as people against this project,” and they invited the communities to a Meeting in Defense of Mother Earth to coordinate resistance on 17 September at 11am in Laguna Suyul, Candelaria.

The Front of Peoples in Defense of the Land (FPDT), based in the ejidos of San Salvador Atenco, started mobilizations on 2 September against the construction of a new airport in the Texcoco zone, as announced by President Enrique Peña Nieto in his second government report. The mobilizations included marches, roadblocks, and other protests, beyond the request for judicial support to nullify the authorization of change of use of land, as approved by ejidal groups in assembly on 1 July. Said assembly, according to the FPDT, was carried out “illegally, because it was manipulated; the necessary quorum was not observed.”

The first action was taken with the symbolic occupation of construction machinery belonging to the Virgo form as hired by the National Water Commission (CONAGUA), which carries out work to maintain a canal that moves waste-water. These works were being performed within the ejidal zone, thus constituting a “provocation.” The FPDT assured that the lands in question had been taken by CONAGUA “illegally, by coopting the [ejidal] commisisoners and carrying out fraudulent assemblies.”

In a new Urgent Action published on 15 August, the Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas Center for Human Rights (CDHFBC) denounced the persistence of attacks against support-bases of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (BAEZLN) in communities of Ocosingo, as prosecuted by members of the Regional Organization of Coffee-Cultivators of Ocosingo (ORCAO). The events began in “recuperated” lands that are collectively worked in the San Manuel autonomous rebel Zapatista municipality (MAREZ), which pertains to the La Garrucha caracol: on 13 August, nine Zapatista families founded the Nuevo Poblado San Jacinto on said lands, which adjoin the Egipto and El Rosario communities.

The bulletin noted that on 14 August, an armed group of 18 ORCAO members for the Pojcol community (Chilón municipality) surrounded the land and began to shoot into the air for 40 minutes and warning the BAEZLN that they had 6 hours to withdraw definitively. The 9 families (40 persons in total) and the 250 BAEZLN who were supporting them “decided to withdraw to a different place.” After this, the ORCAO members destroyed the houses, robbed store merchandise and cash from the homes, among other crimes.

The bulletin details that on 14 August, the women and children of the El Rosario community who belong to ORCAO abandoned the community, leaving only the men, while witnesses claim that these men were threatening the BAEZLN with immediate displacement. The female and children BAEZLN, for their part, also decided to leave amidst the risk of a possible confrontation. The CDHFBC reported that the threats of the ORCAO against BAEZLN in El Rosario “were intensifying to the point of indicating a possible forcible displacement” in the late hours.

For this reason, the CDHFBC expressed its “concern for the imminent risk to life, security, and physical integrity to which the BAEZLN” of the El Rosario, Kexil, Egipto, and Nuevo Poblado San Jacinto communities face. The Center held the Chiapas state government responsible “for being absent during the initial denunciations, thus allowing the perpetration of increasingly flagrant violations of human rights.” It called on State and federal authorities to cease the death-threats and attacks that have served as the basis for the displacement of BAEZLN from three communities, in addition to the adoption of measures to protect the life, integrity, and security of the BAEZLN from the San Manuel autonomous municipality.

On 22 July, ejidatarios from Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, located in the Palenque municipality, denounced that they had suffered death-threats and harassment from a group of residents of the same ejido who are supported by state and federal authorities. In the denunciation, the ejidatarios indicated that they had attempted dialogue with the group, but that this did not resolve the conflict. They report that the minority group has not respected the decisions of the ejidal assembly and has threatened the majority with death, in fact attempting murder in one case. As a result, it was decided that this group was to be expelled from the ejido, with their agrarian rights stripped from them, but the minority group has undertaken a demand against the ejido before the Unitary Agrarian Tribunal in Comitán de Domínguez to nullify the decision of the assembly. According to the denunciation, harassment and death-threats have not ceased, and the minority group remains in the ejido, despite being supported by different governmental agencies. The ejidatarios have requested the intervention of the National Commission on Human Rights and of civil human-rights organizations.